"Robert Rankin - Sex, Drugs & Sausage Rolls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

dragnet.тАЩ

Soap splashed his feet through puddles and, as knife-blades of water rained down on his hat, confusion
reigned in his head.

What was going on here? This wasnтАЩt April FoolтАЩs Day, was it? He unrolled the sodden paper, lifted his
goggles and studied the date. April the first it was not! He scrunched up the press and consigned it to the
gutter.

тАШThatтАЩs where you belong,тАЩ he told it. And then a little thought entered his head. There was one easy
way to find out the truth of all this. Well, of some of it any-way. Soap rootled in his pocket and dragged
out the one-pound note. Go into the nearest shop and try to spend it. Simple, easy, bish bash bosh.

He stopped dead in his trudging tracks and looked up at the nearest shop. The nearest shop wasnтАЩt a
shop as such, though it was a shop of sorts. It was a cop shop. It was the Brentford nick.

тАШAll right,тАЩ said Soap. тАШIf you want to know the time, ask a policeman. So...тАЩ And then he paused and he
stared and he went, тАШNo no no.

Soap knew the Brentford nick of old and, like most of BrentfordтАЩs manly men, had seen the inside more
than once (though never, of course, through any fault of his own). But this was not the Brentford nick he
knew. This was a smart, updated nick. A nick dollied up in red and white. A nick that no longer had the
wordsMETROPOLITAN POLICE above its ever-open door. A nick that now bore a big brash logo
instead.

And what was printed on that logo?

What was it that made poor Soap go, тАШNo no noтАЩ in such a dismal way?

The wordsVIRGINPOLICE SERVICES.



ThatтАЩs what!

Soap took a step back, tripped on the kerb, fell into the road and was promptly run down by a red and
white police car.

He awoke an hour later to find himself inside the nick. Happily, not in one of the cells, but all laid out on
a comfy settee. His hat and his goggles had been removed. Soap rubbed his eyes and squinted all
around. The room was large and well appointed and had the look of a gentlemanтАЩs club. The walls were
bricked, with leather-bound books upon shelves, of mellow mahogany. Parian busts of classical chaps
stood on columns of pale travertine. There were elegant chairs of the Queen Anne persuasion. Tables
that answered to every occasion. Rather nice whatnots. Lancashire hot-pots. Rabbits of yellow and
purple and green.

All very poetic. All very nice.

Soap blinked and refocused his eyes. тАШNo,тАЩ said he, тАШnot all very nice. Well, nice enough, but for the
hot-pots and the rabbits.тАЩ